CHAPTER XVII.
It is not to be supposed that a man of Barker's character would neglectthe signal advantage he had gained in being injured, or at least badlybruised, while attempting to save Margaret from destruction. That he hadreally saved her was a less point in his favour than that he had barkedhis shins in so doing. The proverbial relationship between pity and loveis so exceedingly well known that many professional love-makerssystematically begin their campaigns by endeavouring to move thecompassion of the woman they are attacking. Occasionally they find awoman with whom pity is akin to scorn instead of to love--and then theirpolicy is a failure.
The dark Countess was no soft-hearted Saxon maiden, any more than shewas a cold-blooded, cut-throat American girl, calculating her romance bythe yard, booking her flirtations by double-entry and marrying atcompound interest, with the head of a railway president and the heart ofan Esquimaux. She was rather one of those women who are ever ready tosympathise from a naturally generous and noble nature, but who rarelygive their friendship and still more seldom their love. They marry,sometimes, where there is neither. They marry--ye gods! why do peoplemarry, and what reasons will they not find for marrying? But suchwomen, if they are wedded where their heart is not, are generally veryyoung; far too young to know what they are doing; and though there belittle inclination to the step, it always turns out that they had atleast a respect for the man. Margaret had been married to Count Alexisbecause it was in every way such a plausible match, and she was onlyeighteen then, poor thing. But Alexis was such an uncommonly good fellowthat she had honestly tried to love him, and had not altogether failed.At least she had never had any domestic troubles, and when he was shotat Plevna, in 1876, she shed some very genuine tears and shut herselfaway from the world for a long time. But though her sorrow was sincere,it was not profound, and she knew it from the first, never deceivingherself with the idea that she could not marry again. She had sustainedmany a siege, however, both before her husband's untimely death andsince; and though a stranger to love, she was no novice in love-making.Indeed few women are; certainly no beautiful women.
Margaret, then, though a pure-hearted and brave lady, was of the world,understanding the wiles thereof; and so, when Mr. Barker began to comeregularly to see her, and when she noticed how very long the slightlameness he had incurred from the runaway accident seemed to last, andwhen she observed how cunningly he endeavoured to excite her sympathytowards him, she began to suspect that he meant something more than amere diversion for himself. He spoke so feelingly of his lonely positionin the world; to accentuate which, he spoke of his father without anyfeeling whatever. He represented himself as so drearily lonely andfriendless in this hard-hearted, thorny world. Quite a little lamb wasSilas, leaving shreds of his pure white wool rent off and clinging tothe briars of his solitary life-journey. He was very patient in hissufferings, he said, for he so keenly felt that coarser natures couldnot suffer as he did; that troubles glided from their backs like waterfrom the feathers of the draggled but happy goose, whereas on his tenderheart they struck deep like a fiery rain. Was it not Danty who told ofthose poor people who were exposed to the molten drizzle? Ah yes! Dantyknew, of course, for he had been a great sufferer. What a beautiful, yetsad, word is that, "to suffer"! How gentle and lovely to suffer withoutcomplaint! Had the Countess ever thought of it? To suffer silently--andlong--(here Silas cast a love-sick glance out of his small darkeyes)--with the hope of gaining an object infinitely far removed,but--(another glance)--infinitely beautiful and worth obtaining. Oh!Silas would suffer for ever in such a hope! There was nothing Silaswould not do that was saintly that he might gain heaven.
After a time, Margaret, who disliked this kind of talk intensely, beganto look grave, an omen which Barker did not fail to interpret to hisadvantage, for it is a step gained when a woman begins to be serious.Only a man ignorant of Margaret's real character, and incapable ofappreciating it, could have been so deceived in this case. She had feltstrongly that Barker had saved her life, and that he had acted with aboldness and determination on that occasion which would have merited heradmiration even had it not commanded her gratitude. But she was reallygrateful, and, wishing to show it, could devise no better plan than toreceive his visits and to listen politely to his conversation.
One day, late in the afternoon, they were sitting together over a cup oftea, and Barker was pouring out his experiences, or what he was pleasedto call by that name, for they were not genuine. Not that his ownexistence would have been a dull or uninteresting chapter for a rainyafternoon, for Barker had led a stirring life of its kind. But as it wasnecessary to strike the pathetic key, seeing that Claudius had theheroic symphony to himself, Barker embroidered skilfully a littlepicture in which he appeared more sinned against than sinning, inasmuchas he had been called upon to play the avenging angel. He had succeeded,he admitted, in accomplishing his object, which in his opinion had beena justifiable one, but it had left a sore place in his heart, and he hadnever quite recovered from the pain it had given him to give so muchpain--wholesome pain indeed, but what of that?--to another.
"It was in New York, some years ago," he said. "A friend of mine, such adear good fellow, was very much in love with a reigning beauty, aMiss--; well, you will guess the name. She threw him over, after a threemonths' engagement, in the most heartless manner, and he was sobroken-hearted that he drank himself to death in six months at the club.He died there one winter's evening under very painful circumstances."
"A noble end," said Margaret, scornfully. "What a proud race weAmericans are!" Barker sighed skilfully and looked reproachfully atMargaret.
"Poor chap!" he ejaculated, "I saw him die. And that night," continuedMr. Barker, with a mournful impressiveness, "I determined that the womanwho had caused so much unhappiness should be made to know whatunhappiness is. I made up my mind that she should suffer what my friendhad suffered. I knew her very well,--in fact she was a distantconnection; so I went to her at a ball at the Van Sueindells'. I hadengaged her to dance the German[2], and had sent her some very handsomeroses. I had laid my plan already, and after a little chaff and a fewturns I challenged her to a set flirtation. 'Let us swear,' I said, 'tobe honest, and let us make a bet of a dozen pairs of gloves. If one ofus really falls in love, he or she must acknowledge it and pay thegloves.' It was agreed, for she was in great spirits that night, andlaughed at the idea that she could ever fall in love with _me_--poor me!who have so little that is attractive. At first she thought it was onlya joke, but as I began to visit her regularly and to go through all theformalities of love-making, she became interested. We were soon the talkof the town, and everybody said we were going to be married. Still theengagement did not come out, and people waited, open-mouthed, wonderingwhat next. At last I thought I was safe, and so, the first chance I hadat a party in Newport, I made a dead set at a new beauty just arrivedfrom the South--I forget where. The other--the one with whom I wasbetting--was there, and I watched her. She lost her temper completely,and turned all sorts of colours. Then I knew I had won, and so I wentback to her and talked to her for the rest of the evening, explainingthat the other young lady was a sister of a very dear friend of mine.
[Footnote 2: American for the _cotillon_.]
"The next day I called on my beauty, and throwing myself at her feet, Ideclared myself vanquished. The result was just as I expected. She burstinto tears and put her arms round my neck, and said it was she wholost, for she really loved me though she had been too proud toacknowledge it. Then I calmly rose and laughed. 'I do not care for youin the least,' I said; 'I only said so to make you speak. I have won thegloves.' She broke down completely, and went abroad a few daysafterwards. And so I avenged my friend."
There was a pause when Barker had finished his tale. He sipped his tea,and Margaret rose slowly and went to the window.
"Don't you think that is a very good story, Countess?" he asked. "Don'tyou think I was quite right?" Still no answer. Margaret rang the bell,and old Vladimir appeared.
"
Mr. Barker's carriage," said she; then, recollecting herself, sherepeated the order in Russian, and swept out of the room withoutdeigning to look at the astonished young man, standing on the hearthrugwith his tea-cup in his hand. How it is that Vladimir succeeds ininterpreting his mistress's orders to the domestics of the variouscountries in which she travels is a mystery not fathomed, for in herpresence he understands only the Slav tongue. But however that may be, aminute had not elapsed before Mr. Barker was informed by another servantthat his carriage was at the door. He turned pale as he descended thesteps.
You have carried it too far, Mr. Barker. That is not the kind of storythat a lady of Countess Margaret's temper will listen to; for when youdid the thing you have told her--if indeed you ever did it, which isdoubtful--you did a very base and unmanly thing. It may not be very niceto act as that young lady did to your friend; but then, just think howvery much worse it would have been if she had married him from a senseof duty, and made him feel it afterwards. Worse? Ay, worse than ahundred deaths. You are an ass, Barker, with your complicatedcalculations, as the Duke has often told you; and now it is a thousandto one that you have ruined yourself with the Countess. She will nevertake your view that it was a justifiable piece of revenge; she will onlysee in it a cruel and dastardly deception, practised on a woman whoseonly fault was that, not loving, she discovered her mistake in time. Aman should rejoice when a woman draws back from an engagement,reflecting what his life might have been had she not done so.
But Barker's face was sickly with disappointment as he drove away, andhe could hardly collect himself enough to determine what was best to bedone. However, after a time he came to the conclusion that a letter mustbe written of humble apology, accompanied by a few very expensiveflowers, and followed after a week's interval by a visit. She could notmean to break off all acquaintance with him for so slight a cause. Shewould relent and see him again, and then he would put over on the othertack. He had made a mistake--very naturally, too--because she was alwaysso reluctant to give her own individual views about anything. A mistakecould be repaired, he thought, without any serious difficulty.
And so the next morning Margaret received some flowers and a note, avery gentlemanly note, expressive of profound regret that anything hecould have said, and so forth, and so forth. And Margaret, whose strongtemper sometimes made her act hastily, even when acting rightly, said toherself that she had maltreated the poor little beast, and would see himif he called again. That was how she expressed it, showing that to someextent Barker had succeeded in producing a feeling of pity in hermind--though it was a very different sort of pity from what he wouldhave wished. Meanwhile Margaret returned to New York, where she saw herbrother-in-law occasionally, and comforted him with the assurance thatwhen his hundred napoleons were at an end, she would take care of him.And Nicholas, who was a gentleman, like his dead brother, proud andfierce, lived economically in a small hotel, and wrote magazine articlesdescribing the state of his unhappy country.
Then Barker called and was admitted, Miss Skeat being present, and hisface expressed a whole volume of apology, while he talked briskly ofcurrent topics; and so he gradually regained the footing he had lost. Atall events he thought so, not knowing that though Margaret might forgiveshe could never forget; and that she was now forewarned and forearmed inperpetuity against any advance Barker might ever make.
One day the mail brought a large envelope with an English postage stamp,addressed in a strong, masculine hand, even and regular, and utterlywithout adornment, but yet of a strikingly peculiar expression, if ahandwriting may be said to have an expression.
"CUNARD S.S. _Servia, Sept. 15th_.
"My Beloved Lady--Were it not for the possibility of writing to you, this voyage would be an impossible task to me; and even as it is, the feeling that what I write must travel away from you for many days before it travels towards you again makes me half suspect it is a mockery after all. After these wonderful months of converse it seems incredible that I should be thus taken out of your hearing and out of the power of seeing you. That I long for a sight of your dear face, that I hunger for your touch and for your sweet voice, I need not tell you or further asseverate. I am constantly looking curiously at the passengers, vainly thinking that you must appear among them. The sea without you is not the sea, any more than heaven would be heaven were you not there.
"I cannot describe to you, my dear lady, how detestable the life on board is to me. I loathe the people with their inane chatter, and the idiotic children, and the highly-correct and gentlemanly captain, all equally. The philistine father, the sea-sick mother, the highly-cultured daughter, and the pipe-smoking son, are equally objects of disgust. When I go on deck the little children make a circle round me, because I am so big, and the sailors will not let me go on to forecastle under three shillings--which I paid cheerfully, however, because I can be alone there and think of you, without being contemplated as an object of wonder by about two hundred idiots. I have managed to rig a sort of table in my cabin at last, and here I sit, under the dubious light of the port-hole, wishing it would blow, or that we might meet an iceberg, or anything, to scare the people into their dens and leave me a little open-air solitude.
"It seems so strange to be writing to you. I never wrote anything but little notes in the old days at Baden, and now I am writing what promises to be a long letter, for we cannot be in under six days, and in all that time there is nothing else I can do--nothing else I would do, if I could. And yet it is so different. Perhaps I am incoherent, and you will say, different from what? It is different from what it used to be, before that thrice-blessed afternoon in the Newport fog.
"The gray mist came down like a curtain, shutting off the past and marking where the present begins. It seems to me that I never lived before that moment, and yet those months were happy while they lasted, so that it sometimes seemed as though no greater happiness could be possible. How did it all happen, most blessed lady?
"The lazy, good-natured sea, that loves us well, washes up and glances through my port-hole as I write, as if in answer to my question. The sea knows how it happened, for he saw us, and bore us, and heard all the tale; and even in Newport he was there, hidden under the fog and listening, and he is rejoicing that those who loved are now lovers. It is not hard to see how it happened. They all worship you, every human being that comes near you falls down and acknowledges you to be the queen. For they must. There is no salvation from that, and it is meet and right that it should be so. And I came, like the others, to do homage to the great queen, and you deigned to raise me up and bid me stand beside you.
"You are my first allegiance and my first love. I thank Heaven that I can say it honestly and truly, without fear of my conscience pricking. You know too, for I have told you, how my boyhood and manhood have been passed, and if there is anything you do not know I will tell you hereafter, for I would always hate to feel that there was anything about me you did not know--I could not feel it. But then, say you, he should have told me what he was going to do abroad. And so I have, dear lady; for though I have not explained it all to you, I have placed all needful knowledge in safe hands, where you can obtain it for the asking, if ever the least shadow of doubt should cross your mind. Only I pray you, as suing a great boon, not to doubt--that is all, for I would rather you did not know yet.
"This letter is being written by degrees. I have not written all this at once, for I find it as hard to express my thoughts to you on paper as I find it easy by word of mouth. It seems a formal thing to write, and yet there should be nothing less marred by formality than such a letter as mine. It is only that the choice is too great. I have too much to say, and so say nothing. I would ask, if I were so honoured by Heaven, the tongues of men and of an
gels, and all the mighty word-music of sage and prophet, that I might tell you how I love you, my heart's own. I would ask that for one hour I might hold in my hand the baton of heaven's choir. Then would I lead those celestial musicians through such a grand plain chant as time has never dreamt of, nor has eternity yet heard it; so that rank on rank of angels and saints should take up the song, until the arches of the outer firmament rang again, and the stars chimed together; and all the untold hierarchy of archangelic voice and heavenly instrument should cry, as with one soul, the confession of this heart of mine--'I love.'
"Another day has passed, and I think I have heard in my dreams the bursts of music that I would fain have wafted to your waking ears. Verily the lawyers in New York say well, that I am not Claudius. Claudius was a thing of angles and books, mathematical and earthy, believing indeed in the greatness of things supernal, but not having tasted thereof. My beloved, God has given me a new soul to love you with, so great that it seems as though it would break through the walls of my heart and cry aloud to you. This new Claudius is a man of infinite power to rise above earthly things, above everything that is below you--and what things that are in earth are not below you, lady mine?
"Again the time has passed, in a dull reluctant fashion, as if he delighted to torment, like the common bore of society. He lingers and dawdles through his round of hours as though it joyed him to be sluggish. It has blown a little, and most of the people are sea-sick. Thank goodness! I suppose that is a very inhuman sentiment, but the masses of cheerful humanity, gluttonously fattening on the ship's fare and the smooth sea, were becoming intolerable. There is not one person on board who looks as though he or she had left a human being behind who had any claim to be regretted. Did any one of these people ever love? I suppose so. I suppose at one time or another most of them have thought they loved some one. I will not be uncharitable, for they are receiving their just punishment. Lovers are never sea-sick, but now a hoarse chorus, indescribable and hideous, rises from hidden recesses of the ship. They are not in love, they are sea-sick. May it do them all possible good!
"Here we are at last. I hasten to finish this rambling letter that it may catch the steamer, which, I am told, leaves to-day. Nine days we have been at sea, and the general impression seems to be that the last part of the passage has been rough. And now I shall be some weeks in Europe--I cannot tell how long, but I think the least possible will be three weeks, and the longest six. I shall know, however, in a fortnight. My beloved, it hurts me to stop writing--unreasonable animal that I am, for a letter must be finished in order to be posted. I pray you, sweetheart, write me a word of comfort and strength in my journeying. Anything sent to Baring's will reach me; you cannot know what a line from you would be to me, how I would treasure it as the most sacred of things and the most precious, until we meet. And so, a bientot, for we must never say 'goodbye,' even in jest. I feel as though I were launching this letter at a venture, as sailors throw a bottle overboard when they fear they are lost. I have not yet tested the post-office, and I feel a kind of uncertainty as to whether this will reach you.
"But they are clamouring at my door, and I must go. Once more, my own queen, I love you, ever and only and always. May all peace and rest be with you, and may Heaven keep you from all harm!"
This letter was not signed, for what signature could it possibly need?Margaret read it, and read it again, wondering--for she had never hadsuch a letter in her life. The men who had made love to her had neverbeen privileged to speak plainly, for she would have none of them, andso they had been obliged to confine themselves to such cunning use ofpermissible words and phrases as they could command, together withcopious quotations from more or less erotic poets. Moreover, Claudiushad never been in a position to speak his heart's fill to her until thatlast day, when words had played so small a part.
It was a love-letter, at least in part, such as a man might have writtena hundred years ago--not such as men write nowadays, thought Margaret;certainly not such as Mr. Barker would write--or could. But she was gladhe had written; and written so, for it was like him, who was utterlyunlike any one else. The letter had come in the morning while Clementinewas dressing her, and she laid it on her writing-desk. But when themaid was gone, she read it once again, sitting by her window, and whenshe had done she unconsciously held it in her hand and rested her cheekagainst it. A man kisses a letter received from the woman he loves, buta woman rarely does. She thinks when he is away that she would hardlykiss _him_, were he present, much less will she so honour hishandwriting. But when he himself comes the colour of things is changed.Nevertheless, Margaret put the folded letter in her bosom and wore itthere unseen all through that day; and when Mr. Barker came to offer totake her to drive she said she would not go, making some libellousremark about the weather, which was exceeding glad and sunshiny in spiteof her refusal to face it. And Mr. Barker, seeing that he was lesswelcome than usual, went away, for he was mortally afraid of annoyingher.
Margaret was debating within herself whether she should answer, and ifso, what she should say. In truth, it was not easy. She felt herselfunable to write in the way he did, had she wished to. Besides, there wasthat feminine feeling still lurking in her heart, which said, "Do nottrust him till he comes back." It seemed to her it must be so easy towrite like that--and yet, she had not thought so at the first reading.But she loved him, not yet as she would some day, but still she loved,and it was her first love, as it was his.
She had settled herself in the hotel for the present, and to make itmore like home--like her pretty home at Baden--she had ordered a fewplants and growing flowers, very simple and inexpensive, for she feltherself terribly pinched, although she had not yet begun actually tofeel the restrictions laid on her by her financial troubles. WhenBarker was gone, she amused herself with picking off the dried leavesand brushing away the little cobwebs and spiders that always accumulateabout growing things. In the midst of this occupation she made up hermind, and rang the bell.
"Vladimir, I am not at home," she said solemnly, and the gray-haired,gray-whiskered functionary bowed in acknowledgment of the fact, whichwas far from evident. When he was gone she sat down to her desk andwrote to Dr. Claudius. She wrote rapidly in her large hand, and beforelong she had covered four pages of notepaper. Then she read it over, andtore it up. The word "dear" occurred once too often for her taste. Againthe white fingers flew rapidly along the page, but soon she stopped.
"That is too utterly frigid," she said half aloud, with a smile. Thenshe tried again.
"DEAR DR. CLAUDIUS--So many thanks for your charming letter, which I received this morning. Tell me a great deal more, please, and write _at once_. Tell me everything you do and say and see, for I want to feel just as though you were here to talk everything over.
"Mr. Barker has been here a good deal lately, and the other day he told me a story I did not like. But I forgave him, for he seemed so penitent. Please burn my letters.
"It is very cold and disagreeable, and I really half wish I were in Europe. Europe is much pleasanter. I have not read a word of Spencer since you left, but I have thought a great deal about what you said the last time we did any work together.
"Let me know _positively_ when you are coming back, and let it be as soon as possible, for I must see you. I am going to see Salvini, in _Othello_, to-night, with Miss Skeat. He sent me a box, in memory of a little dinner years ago, and I expect him to call. He _did_ call, but I could not see him.
"I cannot write any more, for it is dinner-time. Thanks, dear, for your loving letter. It was sweet of you to post it the same day, for it caught the steamer.
--In tearing haste, yours, M.
"_P.S._--Answer all my questions, please."
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There was an indistinctness about the last word; it might have been"your," or "yours." The "tearing haste" resolved itself into ringing thebell to know what time it was, for Margaret had banished the hideoushotel clock from the room. On finding it was yet early, she sat down ina deep chair, and warmed her toes at the small wood fire, which was justenough to be enjoyable and not enough to be hot. It was now thebeginning of October, for Claudius's letter, begun on the 15th ofSeptember, had not been posted until the 21st, and had been a long timeon the way. She wondered when he would get the letter she had justwritten. It was not much of a letter, but she remembered the lastparagraph, and thought it was quite affectionate enough. As forClaudius, when he received it he was as much delighted as though it hadbeen six times as long and a hundred times more expansive. "Thanks,dear, for your loving letter,"--that phrase alone acknowledgedeverything, accepted everything, and sanctioned everything.
In the evening, as she had said in writing to the Doctor, she went withMiss Skeat and sat in the front box of the theatre, which the greatactor had placed at her disposal. The play was _Othello_. Mr. Barker hadascertained that she was going, and had accordingly procured himself aseat in the front of the orchestra. He endeavoured to catch a look fromMargaret all through the first part of the performance, but she was tooentirely absorbed in the tragedy to notice him. At length, in theinterval before the last act, Mr. Barker took courage, and, leaving hischair, threaded his way out of the lines of seats to the entrance. Thenhe presented himself at the door of the Countess's box.
"May I come in for a little while?" he inquired with an affectation ofdoubt and delicacy that was unnatural to him.
"Certainly," said Margaret indifferently, but smiling a little withal.
"I have ventured to bring you some _marrons glaces_," said Barker, whenhe was seated, producing at the same time a neat _bonbonniere_ in theshape of a turban. "I thought they would remind you of Baden. You usedto be very fond of them."
"Thanks," said she, "I am still." And she took one. The curtain rose,and Barker was obliged to be silent, much against his will. Margaretimmediately became absorbed in the doings on the stage. She hadwitnessed that terrible last act twenty times before, but she neverwearied of it. Neither would she have consented to see it acted by anyother than the great Italian. Whatever be the merits of the play, therecan be no question as to its supremacy of horror in the hands ofSalvini. To us of the latter half of this century it appears to standalone; it seems as if there could never have been such a scene or suchan actor in the history of the drama. Horrible--yes! beyond alldescription, but, being horrible, of a depth of horror unrealisedbefore. Perhaps no one who has not lived in the East can understandthat such a character as Salvini's _Othello_ is a possible, livingreality. It is certain that American audiences, even while giving theiradmiration, withhold their belief. They go to see _Othello_, that theymay shudder luxuriously at the sight of so much suffering; for it is themoral suffering of the Moor that most impresses an intelligent beholder,but it is doubtful whether Americans or English, who have not lived inSouthern or Eastern lands, are capable of appreciating that thecharacter is drawn from the life.
The great criticism to which all modern tragedy, and a great deal ofmodern drama, are open is the undue and illegitimate use of horror.Horror is not terror. They are two entirely distinct affections. A manhurled from a desperate precipice, in the living act to fall, isproperly an object of terror, sudden and quaking. But the same man,reduced to a mangled mass of lifeless humanity, broken to pieces, andghastly with the gaping of dead wounds--the same man, when his last leapis over and hope is fled, is an object of horror, and as such would notin early times have been regarded as a legitimate subject for artisticrepresentation, either on the stage or in the plastic or pictorial arts.
It may be that in earlier ages, when men were personally familiar withthe horrors of a barbarous ethical system, while at the same time theyhad the culture and refinement belonging to a high development ofaesthetic civilisation, the presentation of a great terror immediatelysuggested the concomitant horror; and suggested it so vividly that thevisible definition of the result--the bloodshed, the agony, and thedeath-rattle--would have produced an impression too dreadful to beassociated with any pleasure to the beholder. There was no curiosity tobehold violent death among a people accustomed to see it often enough inthe course of their lives, and not yet brutalised into a love of bloodfor its own sake. The Romans presented an example of the latter state;they loved horror so well that they demanded real horror and realvictims. And that is the state of the populations of England and Americaat the present day. Were it not for the tremendous power of modern law,there is not the slightest doubt that the mass of Londoners or NewYorkers would flock to-day to see a gladiatorial show, or to watch apack of lions tearing, limb from limb, a dozen unarmed convicts. Not the"cultured" classes--some of them would be ashamed, and some would reallyfeel a moral incapacity for witnessing so much pain--but the masseswould go, and would pay handsomely for the sport; and, moreover, if theyonce tasted blood they would be strong enough to legislate in favour oftasting more. It is not to the discredit of the Anglo-Saxon race that itloves savage sports. The blood is naturally fierce, and has not beencowed by the tyranny endured by European races. There have been morefree men under England's worst tyrants than under France's most liberalkings.
But, failing gladiators and wild beasts, the people must have horrors onthe stage, in literature, in art, and, above all, in the daily press.Shakspere knew that, and Michelangelo, who is the Shakspere of brush andchisel, knew it also, as those two unrivalled men seem to have knowneverything else. And so when Michelangelo painted the _Last Judgment_,and Shakspere wrote _Othello_ (for instance), they both made use ofhorror in a way the Greeks would not have tolerated. Since we no longersee daily enacted before us scenes of murder, torture, and publicexecution, our curiosity makes us desire to see those scenes representedas accurately as possible. The Greeks, in their tragedies, did theirslaughter behind the scenes, and occasionally the cries of the supposedvictims were heard. But theatre-goers of to-day would feel cheated ifthe last act of Othello were left to their imagination. When Salvinithrusts the crooked knife into his throat, with that ghastly sound ofdeath that one never forgets, the modern spectator would not understandwhat the death-rattle meant, did he not see the action that accompaniesit.
"It is too realistic," said Mr. Barker in his high thin voice when itwas over, and he was helping Margaret with her silken wrappings.
"It is not realistic," said she, "it is real. It may be an unhealthyexcitement, but if we are to have it, it is the most perfect of itskind."
"It is very horrible," said Miss Skeat; and they drove away.
Margaret would not stay to see the great man after the curtain fell. Thedisillusion of such a meeting is too great to be pleasurable. Othello isdead, and the idea of meeting Othello in the flesh ten minutes later,smiling and triumphant, is a death-blow to that very reality whichMargaret so much enjoyed. Besides, she wanted to be alone with her ownthoughts, which were not entirely confined to the stage, that night.Writing to Claudius had brought him vividly into her life again, and shehad caught herself more than once during the evening wondering how herfair Northern lover would have acted in Othello's place. Whether, whenthe furious general takes Iago by the throat in his wrath, the Swede'sgrip would have relaxed so easily on one who should dare to whisper abreath against the Countess Margaret. She so lived in the thought for amoment that her whole face glowed in the shade of the box, and her darkeyes shot out fire. Ah me! Margaret, will he come back to stand by yourside and face the world for you? Who knows. Men are deceivers ever, saysthe old song.
Home through the long streets, lighted with the pale electric flame thatgives so deathly a tinge to everything that comes within the circling ofits discolour; home to her rooms with the pleasant little firesmouldering on the hearth, and flowers--Barker's flowers--scenting theroom; home to the cares of Clementine, to lean back with half-closedeye
s, thinking, while the deft French fingers uncoil and smooth and coilagain the jet-black tresses; home to the luxury of sleep unbroken by illease of body, though visited by the dreams of a far-away lover--dreamsnot always hopeful, but ever sweet; home to a hotel! Can a hostelry bedignified with that great name? Yes. Wherever we are at rest and atpeace, wherever the thought of love or dream of lover visits us,wherever we look forward to meeting that lover again--that is home. Forsince the cold steel-tipped fingers of science have crushed space into anut-shell, and since the deep-mouthed capacious present has swallowedtime out of sight, there is no landmark left but love, no hour but thehour of loving, no home but where our lover is.
The little god who has survived ages of sword-play and centuries ofpeace-time, survives also science the leveller, and death the destroyer.
And in the night, when all are asleep, and the chimes are muffled withthe thick darkness, and the wings of the dream-spirits caress the air,then the little Red Mouse comes out and meditates on all these things,and wonders how it is that men can think there is any originality intheir lives or persons or doings. The body may have changed a little,men may have grown stronger and fairer, as some say, or weaker and morepuny, as others would have it, but the soul of man is even as it wasfrom the beginning.
Doctor Claudius, A True Story Page 17
